Ref Review 2012/13: Manchester City

By Walter Broeckx

This article is part of the series of the Referee Review 2013. You can find links to earlier articles on the bottom of this article.

__________________________

After having dealt with the different teams and after having examined all the refs and this leading to the best ref of the season according to the views of our referee reviewers we now will bring you something that will be an easy manual to see who is good or bad for a team.

We will of course bring you this in order so that from now on if you see that your team will play and there is a certain ref assigned you can see in a blink of an eye if this ref has a bad or a good history with your team. At least in the season 2012/2013. And if all goes well we will even try to add the bias from the season before in to each article. And that way you can see possible returning things.

As of course it might be that some referee performances are a one off. But if a ref has the same bias against a team it might show something more. If a ref of course has a big bias in favour of a team it also is saying something about that ref.

A little word of explanation about the graphics you will see. The ultimate referee performance would be that the bias score (which is based on the wrong decisions) is around zero. Alas you will find very few of those scores in the total series. So the zero line will be the middle line of each graphic.

If a ref has positive bias score for the team involved you will see a name (of the ref) and a green line and a number. The bias number for that ref.

On the other hand if the ref had a negative bias you will see again a name but then with a red line and a number. The negative bias score for that ref.

The longer the lines are means the higher the number and the higher that bias has been from the ref. Short lines are better and would be nicer for all. I also included a little table in the graphic just with the names and with a red or green label. This is for those who want to throw a quick look at the names as sometimes the numbers did get in the way with the name.

Next in our series is Manchester City

If we look at the graphic we can pick one ref as an unbiased ref for Manchester City and that is Taylor. He had the much wanted zero bias score.

Now if we look at the positive scores we get a bit of a surprise. Webb was the most positive ref for Manchester City last season. Compared to other numbers we have seen of bias this is a rather low score but still I didn’t see that coming to be honest.

The other refs with a positive bias are refs that have a rather small score. Atkinson, Moss, Clattenburg, Dowd, Dean and Mason are these refs.

Refs with a small negative bias are Foy, Probert and Oliver.

Refs with a bigger negative bias are Swarbrick, Halsey and Marinner.

Now let us see how the situation was in the season when City won the title

Refs with a negative bias then were Webb, Foy, Clattenburg, Oliver and Jones. The ref that seemed to make a high negative score against City Walton has since then left to the USA to form the refs over there.

Foy and Oliver are refs who have a negative bias in two consecutive seasons. So that is not really good for them or for City.

Atkinson, Dowd, Dean and Mason are refs who had a positive bias for those two seasons. So still rather a lot of refs who had a positive score in both seasons. Is this a kind of big team bias we see?

Looking at it we might say that City risk dropping points when Foy and Oliver are around. but on the other hand they surely don’t have to be afraid when Atkinson, Dean, Dowd or Mason is around.

3 comments to Ref Review 2012/13: Manchester City

Interesting to see Halsey top of the + bias for Man U (managed by SAF with whom he was in regular contact out of office hours) and 2nd bottom – bias with Man City. Not that I am suggesting anything sinister, in fact you could say that at least as far as Manchester and Halsey are concerned things ‘evened’ themselves out!